The largest linguistic group of the Indian population belongs to which language family?

Indian languages belong to four main language families. By share of the population (based on Census data), they are:

Indo-Aryan (a branch of the Indo-European family): spoken by about 78% of Indians. It includes Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, Odia, Assamese, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Nepali, Maithili, Dogri and Sanskrit. These languages developed from Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic Sanskrit) through the Prakrits and Apabhramshas.

Dravidian: spoken by about 19-20% of Indians, mainly in South India. It includes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, as well as Tulu, Kodava, Gondi, Kurukh (Oraon) and Brahui (spoken in Pakistan's Balochistan). It is believed to be one of the oldest language families in the subcontinent.

Austroasiatic (Austric), including the Munda group: spoken by about 1% of Indians, mainly by tribes in central and eastern India. It includes Santhali, Mundari, Ho, Bhumij, Khasi (Meghalaya) and Nicobarese.

Tibeto-Burman (a branch of the Sino-Tibetan family): spoken by about 1% of Indians, mainly in the Himalayan region and the North-East. It includes Bodo, Manipuri (Meitei), Garo, Mizo, Tripuri (Kokborok), Lepcha and the Naga languages.

Some languages, such as those of the Great Andamanese, form separate small families, and a few, such as Nihali, are language isolates.

The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution now lists 22 languages. Of these, 15 are Indo-Aryan (including Sanskrit, Nepali, Sindhi, Konkani, Dogri and Maithili), 4 are Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam), 1 is Austroasiatic (Santhali) and 2 are Tibeto-Burman (Bodo and Manipuri).

Why not the other options?

• ✗Dravidian languages are spoken by about a fifth of Indians.
• ✗Austroasiatic languages are spoken by about 1%.
• ✗Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) languages are spoken by about 1%.